


MOST RECENT ITEM SEARCHES, Belmont Hold Catalog

by Megkips



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Collection development, Gen, Libraries, Museums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megkips/pseuds/Megkips
Summary: The most recently searched items in the Belmont Hold's catalog and how each of them came to be.





	MOST RECENT ITEM SEARCHES, Belmont Hold Catalog

**Author's Note:**

> See [previous work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573442) for more about art conservation and managing the Belmont Hold.

 

> **SOURCE: LIBRARY CAT**  
>  **Title:** This being the account of Belnades, Belmont, and Tepes on the Night Hoards and Dracula's Destruction: in the hand of Sypha Belnades  
>  **Creator:** Belnades, Sypha  
>  **Subject:** Manuscripts  
>  Vampires  
>  Vampires--Europe, Central--History.  
>  Vampires--Romania--Transylvania.  
>  Witchcraft--Europe--History--Sources.  
>  Witchcraft--Romania--History.  
>  **Local subject:** Belmont--History--15th century  
>  Belmont, Trevor  
>  Belnades, Sypha  
>  Dracula  
>  Dracula--History--Defeat  
>  Speakers--History  
>  Ţepeş, Adrian  
>  Ţepeş, Lisa  
>  **Year:** 1506  
>  **Format:**  32 cm  
>  **Language:** Romanian (Early)  
>  **General note:** Manuscript.  
>  Title page illuminated.  
>  Written down 30 years after Dracula's defeat, mirrors the earliest known Speaker versions of the events  
>  Marginalia forbidden.  
>  **Local note:** Digital copy exists.  
>  Red leather, gilt edges, rebound in 1859 with additional marble endpapers added at the time.  
>  Located in security vault, handling is minimized.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Sypha exclaimed when she held the bound copy of her book in hand. It had been so many years since she passed her version of Dracula’s defeat on to her people, so many years since the residents of Wallachia picked up on bits and pieces of the story and took it into their hearts. It was the kind of story that non-Speakers could mangle so quickly, and the Belmont Hold needed the definitive edition.

(No one asked why it had to be Sypha to pen the account. The Alucard version was all tragedy and flowery prose; the Trevor version was bare-boned and foul-mouthed. Storytelling was Sypha’s bloodright.)

The three of them were curled up on one of the heated floors of the castle, a tangle of limbs in front of the fire. Sypha sitting upright, her back against the sofa, Trevor’s head in her lap about five seconds away from being used as a stand to hold the book up, the rest of Trevor sprawled onto Alucard’s lap just _because._

“Open it,” Alucard encouraged, and of course the spine of the book immediately rested on Trevor’s head.

“Sypha!” Trevor groaned. “My face!”

“Yes, the leather for this was quite expensive, please remove it from his head before his greasy hair leaves stains,” Alucard smirked.

“Fuck you!”

Sypha gently bopped the top of Trevor’s head with the book, then nudged him with her knee to get him to just sit the hell up already, rather than keep complaining. Even with them all in their 50s, Trevor and Alucard were as young and asinine as they had ever been. It contrasted with all the peppered in grey now in Trevor’s hair and the always overbearing nobility that Alucard liked to project to the world around him.

But Trevor did sit up, and he wormed his way between the other two. Between Trevor and Sypha, the beautiful red-bound tome was placed on their laps, and the title page beamed up at them not with typeset letters, but with Alucard’s own handwriting. No Latin, just the language of Wallachia’s people. The castle loomed at the top of the page, its spires branching outward and down into an ornate pattern of swirls with a keen Ottoman influence, meeting a depiction of the Belmont Hold at the bottom. An explosion of color greeted them, too, and it was secretly the product of so many hours of trying to copy the style of the great illuminators. (Alucard’s father had such books in his collection, the ones less about faith and more for the history of the ancients. He always wondered how they were obtained from monasteries.)

The rest was in Sypha’s handwriting, large and looping, easy for the eye to read. Alucard had asked her to put it down with the intent of running it to a printer, but after he was handed the manuscript, he realized how wrong it was. Pre-cut letters and a printing press were not the right way to express this story. It was too personal. So there was only one thing left to do: get it bound.

It was the easier and the harder task. There were printers and binders in Târgoviște now, and they were skilled. The problem was _Târgoviște_ , which Alucard refused to set foot in for reasons that no one ever argued. If things needed binding, Sypha took the books and brought them back. And this book was a secret until all the work of producing it was done.

The dread of going to Târgoviște was worth the look on Sypha’s face as she reached the end of the book, the _FINIS_ at the end a product of Alucard’s hand rather than her own. There was no sun brighter, and the book was put aside so that she could drag Alucard over into her arms. An undignified “oof!” escaped the half-vampire in a half-hearted attempt to remain balanced, but Sypha had him in his arms, the rest of him was sprawled over Trevor, and of course Trevor was rolling his eyes with all the fondness in the world.

“You sentimental bastards,” he laughed, only to be met by Sypha’s and Alucard’s elbows in his side and stomach respectively.

The book was worth its joy, not only for the moment it was given, but for what it prevented, too: there would never be a need for Alucard to voice how Dracula came to be defeated to future Belmonts and Belnadeses. There would just be the book.  


* * *

> **SOURCE: LIBRARY CAT**  
>  **Title:** A Guide to Grand-Jury Men ... The second addition [sic].  
>  **Creator:** Bernard, Richard  
>  **Publication Details:** London : Felix Kyngston for Edw. Blackmore, 1630.  
>  **Subject:** Witchcraft--England--History.  
>  Witchcraft--Europe--History--Sources.  
>  **Local subject:** Witchcraft--Law and legislation  
>  **Year:** 1630  
>  **Format:** 12º (duodecimo)  
>  Language: English  
>  **General note:** Second edition  
>  Digital copies are held elsewhere.

It was not enough, Alucard learned, to only accept anything brought back from adventures abroad into the Belmont Hold. What came in differed wildly from trip to trip, and it did not allow for anything like a comprehensive collection of all the things that might be needed in such a place. Trevor usually brought home weird and disgusting dead things or else their bones. Sypha returned with manuscripts and printed books on the most obscure subjects. Their children had armfuls of horrifying dark weapons and spells captured in bottles that still rattled and shook violently, even years later. Cursed objects came next in a terrible wave, and Alucard had to find a safe way to store all of them. It was not sustainable, and so Alucard learned how to _curate._ Find books and manuscripts and objects that the current generation had little interest in pursuing but added value to the collection all the same.

Some collecting areas were easier to obtain material for than others. The Ottomans and their empire had such new takes on the darkest underbellies of the world, and even Wallachia’s markets flooded with objects said to contain djinn and ghouls. Their alchemists of old (scientists for the most part, with many of their books held by his father) had such ideas that needed to be added to the Hold’s books, and the writings of their mystics could be bought for a higher price.

Harder were the things coming off of Europe’s printing presses and the hands of the mages there. Oh, there was such a new fascination with demons and magic that some truly remarkable texts did exist now, but for the past century and change there had been one topic that provoked nothing but rage from the dhampir: _witchcraft._

What had happened to his mother was a herald of something far worse, not just a terrible and isolated incident. Laws changed. Trials morphed, became subject to different rules depending on one’s religion and where one lived, for the Reformation had shifted Europe terribly and dramatically. It was for the sake of the Belmont family’s safety that Alucard paid close attention to legal codes involving witchcraft. They did not need a second taste of fire, nor did he.

“You’re going to drive yourself mad with your reading choices, you know,” came Marilena’s voice as she approached Alucard. He was on the Hold’s second floor, abusing vampiric floating powers to put away several books that were on the highest shelf. Against the dark burgundy of her dress were two packages of books - both bound with sturdy leather straps to hold everything in place, the books themselves were a mix of soft-covered material and hard and hardy bound books.

“I don’t need commentary on how the collection is curated,” he replied.

“But seriously, _A Guide to Grand Jury Men, Divided in two books. In the first, is the Author’s best advice to them what to do, before they bring in a Billa vera in cases of Witchcraft_ and then the whole rest of the tile?” Marilena countered. She was in her teenage years, all fire like Sypha was and with a headstrong boldness that was inherited from other parts of the Belmont line. Old enough to hunt, skilled enough with magic to already send night things running in terror. She had the opportunity to pursue other things (that was the rule Trevor and Sypha agreed upon, it is an _option_ to do the family work, not _requirement_ ), but her calling was clear.

Alucard sighed. “It is good to know what to expect, should anything happen.”

“Right. Because we’re going to go through all the legal codes if we’re arrested and someone tries to do the whole witch thing with this family again. What are they going to do, un-boyar us for a second time and fuck up the ruins?”

“Do not joke about that,” was the response, intoned with so much gravity that Alucard found himself on the floor without even his own say so. “Not now and not ever.”

“Okay, okay,” Marilena managed after a tense and silent second, shifting the weight of the books carefully in her arms. It was not a secret that certain things were Not Jokes around Alucard. Managing the combination of making light of witchcraft and gallows humor around the dhampir was the kind of thing that deserved an award. As was her pressing on. “...Seriously though, why do you do that to yourself?”

Silence did not respond. A sigh did, followed by Alucard accepting that he wasn’t going to get done what he intended to. The two books still in his arms were shoved onto the nearest shelf, flat and resting atop their siblings, and he extended his arms to take the bundles from Marilena.

“Safety,” he said, starting to walk past her and then towards the steps to get to the ground level of the Hold. “Laws change, as does how one tries to prove or disprove the concept of witchcraft. Studying what is most recently published… It’s preparation for field work. I write advisories when I’m informed someone is going into a place where authorities are making a point of looking for witches.”

Marilena’s footsteps were behind Alucard, up until the two reached the stairs, at which point she was beside him again. Humming, thoughtful and considered. “Sounds like the kind of stuff we should be writing up and studying then, not you.”

Alucard’s feet nearly missed a step. Nearly. “Are you going to insist?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Then you’re going to start now. You didn’t have any other plans today, did you?”

There was a string of colorful word choices, followed by a defeated noise. “I don’t now.”

Alucard could only laugh.  


* * *

> **SOURCE: OBJECT CAT**  
>  **DATABASE ID:** 0003015  
>  **Object name:** Taxidermied remains of unidentified night creature species  
>  **Creator** : Belmont, Richter  
>  **Date:** 1789  
>  **Culture:** N/A  
>  **Medium:** Remains  
>  **Dimensions:**  1 m x 5 M;  
>  **Classification:** Specimen (taxidermy)  
>  **Credit line:** Acquisition (note: hunting, Richter Belmont)  
>  **Accession number:** 1789.003.007  
>  **Description:** Taxidermied remains of an unidentified night creature species. Head is that of an exposed skull, ears are tall with scales. Black fur, approximately the size of a border collie.  
>  **Provenance:** Captured on a hunt by Richter Belmont, taxidermy magic performed in part by him. Magic re-cast in 1949 by Charlotte Aulin due to preservation concerns. See attached file for spell             specifics. Check condition every 10 years.  
>  **Note:** Only documented species. Possibly a juvenile?  
>  **Subject:** Specimen.  
>  Taxidermy.  
>  **Local subjects:** Belmont--History--18th century  
>  Belmont, Richter  
>  Night creatures--unclassified.

It was sometime in the early part of the 1700s that Alucard had sat down with Juste’s father and had a very long discussion about what the Hold could and could not contain as time moved forward. Space was, after all, limited by the amount of earth that Leon had dug out, and it was likely that within the next century, there would be no room for any acquisitions at all.

(“Can’t you move it into the castle?”

“That won’t solve the problem; it will only delay finding a solution. We have to limit the whole skeletons and taxidermy works, those are our biggest problems.”)

So there was another long discussion about what could be brought down into the Hold. A third about where new rooms could be added onto without threatening to send the whole castle down, down, _down_ atop the greatest collection in the whole of Europe. The final talk was to put it all down on paper, so that as the end of the eighteenth century rolled around, no Belmont could claim that they couldn’t understand why _this_ hideous night thing wasn’t worth putting in the family collections versus another manuscript that was accepted quite readily. Understanding what was _worthy of the Hold_ was as much a part of Belmont training as anything else.

Which was why when Alucard looked up from reading a new spellbook delivered two days ago to see a bright-eyed sixteen-year-old with a still-bleeding thing with fur black as night draped over both of his shoulders, he knew that there was about to be another long discussion.

“Richter,” he breathed out, placing the book down against the cushion of his chair. There were a few pieces of furniture down in the Hold these days, not terribly far from the Index, and it was for those who ended up spending entire days conducting research as well as himself.

Richter grinned back at Alucard, all boyish youth and pride. His hands were holding onto the paws of the dead thing slung over his shoulder, although “paws,” on second glance, wasn’t quite right. They were closer to human feet but two more toes than strictly required and long white claws that contrasted terribly with the black of the fur. “I know, I know,” he said brightly. “But I don’t think we’ve cataloged this thing before and it’s like...the size of a herding dog! Caught it two days ago, so it’s a little--”

“--Decomposing,” Alucard finished neatly. He must have been too involved in the book, as the smell was all around. Terrible stench, and it took Alucard a moment to adjust. “You’re certain that it isn’t documented elsewhere?”

“I’m not the one with a near perfect recall of everything in here,” Richter pointed out helpfully, allowing Alucard to get to his feet and begin to walk towards the Index. There were two tables on either side of it now, one for material that was incoming, the other for items that need to be placed on their shelves. For the incoming shelf to be empty was a true rarity, and it meant Richter plopped the creature down with full knowledge that there could be no blood spilled on other important items yet to enter the collections properly.

“Is there anything familiar in it?”

Alucard held up a finger to request silence, which really meant an invitation for Richter to hover over the dhampir’s shoulder. As for the thing in front of them both, Richter was right about the size. The--not paws though, they were still large, and Alucard took one of them in hand carefully. Held it with the fear the fur might shift too much under his hands, and then considered it all carefully.

“There was still a ways for this thing to reach maturity,” Alucard murmured, more to himself than to Richter. He was used to this work happening with no one else to watch, but who was he to deny such pride and excitement of having something to enter into the family records?

He let go of the not-paws. Let his hand brush over the fur, considering the weight. Moonless nights were lighter, and the fur had a triple coat. It was likely a thing bred for the coldest places in Hell. (Which was the lowest part of it, if one believed Dante.) The thing had a stub for a tail, but it was the face where true horror set in.

There were little ears that pointed up, like so many animals whose hearing was beyond what humans could dream. Batlike, if Alucard had to to pin it on any animal, but with the fur becoming dark blue scales rather than something fleshier. The eyes, glassy now, they were set on either side of the head, more fishy than mammalian. And from the eyes down a horrible snout with no fur, no covering, no muscle at all, only exposed bone with a tongue lolling out of it. Alucard didn’t try to touch any of the face. There were flies buzzing around it, and that was the last point of assessment he felt compelled to consider.

“You’re right,” he said finally, turning to Richter. “This is new, and that means that the skeleton and taxidermy rule is superseded both on that grounds, and on size.”

The grin on Richter’s face hadn’t gone away since he entered the Hold, but it took on a new form now. It wasn’t just pride in a hunt well accomplished, but pride in what he contributed now. “My first entry, huh?”

Alucard nodded. “Yes. But it won’t be much of anything if the correct steps aren’t taken now. You need to get the appropriate spellwork in place now, otherwise the natural world will claim this instead. Go up to the second level, row 34, shelf C. You’ll know the right title when you see it.”  


* * *

> **SOURCE: OBJECT CAT**  
>  **DATABASE ID:** 0008356  
>  **Object name:** Specimen (wet), homunculus with three thumbs  
>  **Creator:** Palma, Dr. Davies C.  
>  **Date:** c. 1895  
>  **Culture:** American  
>  **Medium:** Human remains, formaldehyde  
>  **Dimensions:** 22 cm x 24 cm x 15 cm  
>  **Classification:** Specimen  
>  **Credit line:** Acquisition (note: stolen)  
>  **Accession number:** 1885.022.001  
>  **Description:** Homunculus suspended in formaldehyde. Likely taken from a recent grave and attempted to be re-animated rather than any other course. Experimentation attempts have resulted in one hand having three thumbs. Homunculus was supposedly still alive when donated to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and was able to swim through the liquid it was stored in. Was transferred into current jar with formaldehyde at time of theft. No decomposition.  
>  **Provenance:** Stolen from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (now the Mutter Museum) in response to concerns about object falling into inappropriate hands. Field work done by Alina  Belmont. See attached documents for original donor information stolen from the college along with her own observations and notes.  
>  **Note:** Only wet specimen in collection. Cross reference 1703.444.002 and 1302.001.040 for dried.  
>  **Subject:** Homunculus  
>  Mütter Museum  
>  Specimen  
>  **Local subjects:** Belmont, Alina  
>  Belmont--History--19th century.

The jar sat on the workbench of the Hold, the one reserved for incoming items. It was next to too many things right now, a cursed tabard and a few new books, and Alucard intended to clear the whole of it today. There was a proliferation of the strange and otherworldly lately, and to leave anything sitting out for too long meant it became clutter. He was the only line of defense between order and the Hold actually becoming the basement of a bunch of mentally ill hoarders he declared it to be 400 years ago.

In the jar was a little deformed fetus that wasn’t a fetus at all. Eyes and teeth and hair in wrong places, suspended in formaldehyde. The jar was two feet tall (so within the limits set last century regarding larger items related to skeletons and taxidermy), the wet specimen inside about six inches from head to toe. There was a little tag wrapped around the jar, reading _Property of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia_. It was that tag that brought Alucard’s gaze upon Alina Belmont, golden and impervious to any attempts of a defense and so very, very annoyed.

“You cannot just break into museums and steal their collections,” he said flatly, holding up the tag.

Alina stared back at him. “Do _you_ think a medical science museum should have an actual homunculus in it?”

“That is not the discussion we are having.”

“It’s the discussion we _should_ be having,” Alina countered, gesturing down at the jar. She had inherited the headstrongness of so many Belmonts before her, but it came paired with a recklessness that meant her hunts were not subtle. There had been more than one newspaper report of a crime or break-in or strange death that described a young woman in her late twenties with black hair in a braid, dressed in men’s trousers, fleeing the scene. She had a whip at her side, and was always wanted for police questioning.

Alucard was not going to contradict that particular point, but the pain that throbbed in the back of his head was getting to be tiresome. “Museums keep records like this place does,” he intoned. “They’ll demand an investigation of a robbery, especially if you weren’t subtle, and there will always be some record of it because even if you took the donor records, the source of the acquisition is still alive.”

“Damn it,” Alina muttered. “I thought grabbing all the catalog records would help.” She then paused, squinting her ice blue eyes at Alucard, only to sigh when the continued look of disapproval met her. “Fine, I’ll find another way to spirit away stuff that other places definitely shouldn’t have on display because until I grabbed it from the museum, it was totally moving and not dead like their notes said.”

“Moving,” Alucard repeated carefully. He let the word settle on his tongue, finding that he disliked it deeply. “Moving how, and was that fact known among...”

“Like it was pressing its face up against the glass making gross faces, and no, it was a secret. I overheard two of the museum staff talking about it, they said it creeped them out and that there was no way they could invite the public to come see something so disturbing,” Alina replied. The edge in her voice was razor sharp. It mixed well with her perpetual stubborn attitude. “Which I think the donor wanted them to do; check the files I grabbed.”

Alucard paused, taking the indicated notes in hand and skimming them. There was sloppy doctor handwriting (his mother’s was never this bad), and the donor’s handwriting all prim and legible.

“Condition of gift is it be displayed in a special program for the public,” Alucard sighed. It was a lost fight. “You can’t do this in the future.”

“Of course not.” It was an insincere statement. Alucard knew that tone, the tone of triumph over the dhampir and license to keep doing whatever the Belmont wanted to do. “I’ll be sure not to do it when I go to Varna later to check out this really weird dirt delivery that Mom got wind of yesterday. Something about a natural history museum taking charge of it?”

Dirt. _Fuck._ Alucard just shook his head, grateful only for a week to prepare for the next round of this talk. “Don’t bring me back boxes of dirt, please.”  


* * *

> **SOURCE: LIBRARY CAT**  
>  **Title:** Travel journals of Charlotte Aulin from 1959-1969  
>  **Creator:** Aulin, Charlotte  
>  **Subject:** Cold War--Cultural aspects.  
>  Oral history--Europe.  
>  **Local subject:** Aulin, Charlotte  
>  Speakers--History  
>  Speakers--Oral culture  
>  **Year:** 1959-1969  
>  **Format:** Cassette tape  
>  **Language:** English, some German  
>  **General note:** 50 tapes in total. Contains documentation of various supernatural entities encountered in Western and Eastern Europe. Also contains two recordings of Speaker accounts of 1) the Beast of Gévaudan and 2) several variations of tales of the Russian alkonost. Notable for the tales and for this being the first known recording of Speakers.  
>  **Local note:** Digital copy exists.  
>  Transcripts in progress.

The Hold had been devoid of visitors for three weeks, save Alucard himself. To have anyone in there now felt like a temporary reprieve from the more dire thing at hand, which was that his collections manager had been arrested on some kind of charge from the current government, and no amount of his own influence was going to change that. If anything, Alucard’s position and the fact he was able to avoid so many changes the communists were forcing due to the remote location of the castle and Hold were likely to make things worse.

So Charlotte appearing on his doorstep was nothing short of a blessing. She looked more worn from the road than she ought to have been (explained away by her car breaking down and a quick fix being required), and the first question she had was if they could go down into the Hold. It wasn’t an emergency _exactly_ but she did want to be quick about it. Thirty years on and things hadn’t changed. There was always palpable excitement on the precipice of new research, and she hid it so poorly.

There was no denying that excitement, and to go down into the Hold with anyone at all was a happy thing. Charlotte nearly thundered down the stairs so quickly that Alucard was certain she was going to trip at some point, but it never came to pass. Deft feet carried her over to the Index, where the normal worktables stood alongside three sturdy library carts.

“Take whichever one you’d like,” he said, gesturing to the carts. The response from Charlotte was a blue leather satchel flung at his face. Alucard caught it, and it rattled and clacked.

“For the collection!” she declared with all the pride in the world. “You’ve got a tape player, right?”

“Of course. I’m not a technological rube.” Which was true. But it was also true that being under the influence of the USSR made acquisition of just about anything much harder. Technology, which translated as things that allowed for indulging in decadent western culture, was some of the hardest.

Charlotte laughed in response, bright and crystal clear, the sound ringing off the Hold’s high ceilings. “They’re my journals for the past few years,” she said, watching as Alucard put the satchel down and began to unpack its contents. Tape after tape after tape, each neatly labeled with a date. “Well, mostly. I ran into some Speakers earlier this year, and got them to humor me with a recording.”

Alucard’s hands stilled, one still shoved into the bag, the other resting on a stack of tapes. He wasn’t even going to try and hide how impressed he was. “Really?”

“It’s not putting them down on dead trees, is it?” Charlotte countered. “It’s only two stories. They’re not exactly evolving their stance on having an oral culture, but they’re starting to think about how sound recordings could benefit them. You could probably go out and talk to some of the younger ones about it, see if they could...”

...I think you’d have to act in my place,” Alucard said, returning to the work of unpacking the bag. There were fifty tapes in total. “If I wasn’t limited in my movement before, I am penned in now.”

“Possibly. The ones I ran into were in East Berlin but,” Charlotte gestured to the tapes. “We talked about the how they’ve been moving under the USSR and how to get in touch with caravans, everything’s on there, and...hey, did you give Aurel the day off or something? Usually he pokes his head out of the stacks by now.”

Alucard paused for a moment, then simply allowed himself to look away from Charlotte. She was smart, she’d figure it out, and it was with a single repetition of _penned in_ that she understood. “...You know where they’re holding him?”

“I believe so.”

Charlotte gave a nod of her head. “Do you trust me here for a few days on my own?”

“...” was Alucard’s first response. The second was a nod of his head. “Anything that you take off the shelves, leave next to the Index. I’ll put it away when I return.”

Alucard knew Charlotte said something like good-bye or good luck. Which it was, he didn’t register. He was already turned on his heel, certain that whatever escape he devised, he’d need to not only see his collections manager freed, but utterly out of the country and into the west. He could do that. He could forge the right documents or scare them up in Bucharest. The question of anyone trying to harm the castle or the Hold was a non-issue. He had left it with a skilled defender.  


* * *

> **SOURCE: LIBRARY CAT**  
>  **Title:** HAUNTED PLACES AND WHERE TO FIND THEM [a web forum for discussion of local urban legends] -- Other places in Romania besides Hoia Baciu that you should check out  
>  **Creator:** Unknown commenters  
>  **Subject:** Vampires  
>  Vampires--Europe, Central--History.  
>  Witchcraft--Romania--History.  
>  **Local subject:** Belmont--History-21st century.  
>  Ţepeş, Adrian  
>  **Year:** 2017  
>  **Format:** Archived web page / electronic record  
>  **Language:** English.  
>  **General note:** Web message board.  
>  Post #42 created by unknown family member, probably several for antagonization purposes.  
>  **Local note:** Contains description of the castle and encourages rumors of a ghost or pale-haired man who lives there. Invites others reading to go out and ring the doorbell and see if they are responded to, or if they are chased off property by a large white wolf.  
>  Road directions are generally misleading, but several visitors have made their way forward.  
>  See listing of marginalia for transcript of group chat reactions to Adrian Tepes finally finding out about this.

“Boss.”

Alucard frowned, putting another book into one of the dozens of acid-free boxes he had had to purchase in the effort to shore up the Hold from collapse. He disliked moving the contents of the Belmont Hold’s library collection at the best of times, but the equipment had to pass safely, and the books required protection.

“ _Boss._ ” The voice of his collections manager cut in again, this time intenser, and then finally with the worst American accent, “ _Yo, Adrian._ ”

That finally got Alucard’s attention, his head snapping up from the box of books beside him on the floor. “What is it?” he asked, irritated because the joke stopped being funny about five seconds after the film’s release.

Ioana, who was standing at three-tiered metallic library cart, her laptop perched on it (the carts were solid makeshift desks), walked over only to dump the thing in Alucard’s lap. “You said that you’ve been getting weird visitors at night yelling about a pale man for the past two years? I think I’ve figured out why.”

The website on the screen was one of those message boards dedicated to strange hauntings, documentation of the bumps in the night, and all the little scary things that still roamed the Earth. Nothing of Dracula’s nighthoards or any other vampires, just garden variety weirdness that had always lived alongside humanity.

“Other places in Romania besides Hoia Baciu that...” Alucard repeated, skimming the page before feeling the fifth stomach ulcer of the 2010s. “Ioana, is my phone on the cart?”

Ioana hummed her usual _wait a sec, boss_ hum, leaving Alucard to keep scrolling before a gentle weight was put on his head. Wordlessly, Alucard reached up and took his cellphone from his assistant, and tapped a few times before arriving in his text messages. There were fewer Belmonts these days, the actual surname having died out and many of them not doing the work of their forefathers, but they were still around. They still kept in touch. They still visited, laughing about how Alucard had purchased far too much land to keep the area so very hidden from the world.

> Which one of you posted to the “Other Places in Romania besides Hoia Baciu that you should check out” discussion post?    **A**  
>  **S** OH SHIT HE KNOWS  
>  **K** wait didn’t we post that like two years ago  
>  **J** Fuck, we did, how did it take that long for you to find it?  
>  **K** Assistant, probably  
>  **O** omg leave him alone he’s probably spending most of his time doing dark bidding on eBay  
>  **S** We did break the coffee table last time we were over...

The sound of text messages firing off one after the other after the next meant Alucard could only stare at the rapid fire responses with the same resigned disbelief that he always had for this level of Belmont-ness. Ioana hovered above him, reading the madness.

“Your godkids are all a bunch of goblins, aren’t they?” That had been the explanation Alucard gave ages ago. Godchildren, an alarming amount of them.

Alucard let out that faint snort of laughter that on any other man would be riotous, joyful agreement. He couldn’t bring himself to admit to Ioana that half the texts were from other adults, not the bratling 20-somethings who he knew also had a private chat entitled _Good Dhampir Burns_ that one day he planned to quote in front of all of them, just to see their faces.

“They are.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to Sara for the beta.
> 
> Several commenters on a previous fic about [ historic preservation and art conversation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573442) showed interest in seeing something that explored the Hold’s catalog as well as the ways various Belmonts and allies interact with the vampire curator over the years so...behold. Said comments also name dropped Charlotte, hence her presence.
> 
> The actual catalog records here are modifications from what I’m used to working both within the world of museums and as a librarian. Library and museum catalogs capture different information, and I’ve kept that in mind. What you’re looking at for library displays are based on how Primo (used by many university and state libraries these days) shows information rather than a MARC 21 record. The object records are based on my institution’s customized version of a particular system.
> 
> Anything categorized under “subject” are actual facts Library of Congress subject headings and all exist! Anything under “local subject” means that it’s a part of the search terms Alucard came up with to manage the hold.
> 
> The record for “A Guide to Grand-Jury Men” is pretty much grabbed wholesale from the British Library’s record, although I added the Library of Congress subject headings.
> 
> So, the [Mütter Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCtter_Museum), a part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, probably has the closest comparable collection to what might be in the Belmont Hold. It contains pathological specimens (things in jars! things dried! bones!), wax casts, antique equipment, a library, archival materials, and a whole host of other weird and wonderful medical things. I cannot tell you how wild this place is you should just go check it out.
> 
> Communist Romania was a shit show, and the cassette tape was made in 1962!


End file.
